Soundscape

A soundscape is a type of audio script used to add ambience to maps. It can be used in any number of maps, requires only a single entity to implement, and does not generate any network traffic. Soundscapes use a mixture of looped and randomly played sounds, all of which have the option to be emitted from one of eight assignable target locations; DSP and Soundmixer profiles can also be enforced.

Only one soundscape can be active at any given time, and the individual sounds used within it cannot be controlled via inputs. When another soundscape is activated, the game will cross fade from one to the other.

Browsing Soundscapes

Soundscapes are typically located in the scripts\ folder of a game, stored across multiple text files prefixed with soundscapes_. Each file is loaded via scripts\soundscapes_manifest.txt, which lists all soundscape scripts that should be mounted by the game. Soundscapes mounted through the manifest can be used anywhere in the game, even if they're only intended for a specific area.

Soundscapes can also be mounted on a per-map basis by naming them soundscapes_%mapname%.txt, with %mapname% being the map that they should be loaded on. These soundscapes will be mounted by that map automatically without changing the manifest and can only be used in that map.

Note:These files are usually packed away in the original Valve games, but they can be overridden automatically by any unpacked files within that folder.

At the bottom of this article you will find links to lists of soundscapes for individual games, along with attempts at describing them.

You can browse through all the available soundscapes in a current game first hand, using the in-game console command PlaySoundscape. After typing in the first letter as the commands parameter, the auto-complete feature will list them as suggestions. You can then scroll through this list using the arrow keys.

Configuring Soundscapes

There are other entities which can activate the soundscape, but these are the only entities which actually define soundscape properties. The other entities will point to these and use them as masters to remotely trigger the soundscape.

Whenever these entities activate a soundscape, any positional audio will originate from the targets defined under their properties.

Tip: Many soundscapes define positions for sounds to emanate from, so it is always a good idea to peek into the soundscape entry and get a feel for what you can do. Most entries are found in the text files listed in the <game>/scripts/soundscapes_manifest.txt file. To better understand soundscape entries, see below.

Activating Soundscapes

Any soundscape entity that is enabled and becomes triggered by the player, activates its - or its master's - specified soundscape. Soundscapes remain active until a map change occurs, or another soundscape is activated, even if the entity that originally activated it becomes disabled.

As only one soundscape can be active at any one time, if one or more soundscape entities are triggered simultaneously, the closest one is given precedence. (The radius of soundscape entities always take precedence over trigger_soundscape brushes.)

Note that a soundscape will not stop playing just because a player exits its radius or it loses line of sight to him.

Soundscape Placement

At first, a good rule is to place only as many soundscapes as you absolutely need. Try to choose from a similar set of soundscapes to be played, and then pick one that will be your primary soundscape. After that, place your secondary soundscapes at every contrasting location (e.g. house, generator room). Make sure that every location with localized sound effects has its own master soundscape that is tied to the proper targets.

Once you've gotten a general idea of where your soundscapes will be located, you'll then be able to start adding/configuring the entities that will trigger your soundscapes and create a kind of blueprint for how soundscapes will flow from one to another. In many cases, you'll be placing entities that block off all exits from your contrasting locations with triggers to your primary soundscapes. Basically, the goal is to anticipate the player's movement throughout the map, and to block off each area in such a way that it will always have the proper soundscape activated.

After your flow is organized, you'll be able to specialize your soundscapes/triggers to behave in complex ways (e.g responding to game events).

Multiple instances of one sound in one soundscape

Currently, in most Source engine branches, it is impossible to play two or more identical sounds at same time in the same soundscape, even if the volume, the pitch or the sound level is different.

(New with Counter-Strike: Global Offensive): this issue has been remedied, allowing soundscapes to play multiple instances of identical sounds concurrently.

Confirm:Has this been fixed in any pre-CS:GO branches?

A possible solution is to create a copy of the first sound and name it differently. This can be a workaround for really short sounds like light hum, but not recommended for others due to the fact that it increase the overall size uselessly. This is the solution that Valve has chosen in cs_militia, in Counter-Strike Source. In the kitchen, there is two fluorescent lights with hum sounds, but the first one is "ambient/machines/fluorescent_hum_1.wav" and the second one is "ambient/machines/fluorescent_hum_2.wav". Those two sounds are completely identical, but need to be two different name in order to be used in the same soundscape.

Another example is the situation below. We have 3 fluorescent lights and we want hum sounds at their locations. In order to work correctly, soundscape file and Hammer entities should be configured like below.

Despite the fact that most Source engine branches cannot play more than one identical sound at once, in some situation, it appear that it is possible to play the same sound multiple time at different location using channels.
After many tests in various situations and source code exploration, it seems to be possible by using different channels. For example, instead using differents names, we use different channels like CHAN_STATIC, CHAN_STREAM, CHAN_AUTO, etc. For an unknown reason at the moment, this won't works everytime or at every map loading.
See Soundscript for more informations.

Custom Soundscapes

Creation

Soundscape scripts are very similar to soundscripts, but still remain entirely different things.

Soundscapes require a few of their own rules, and are placed in plain text files that are separate from normal soundscript files. A typical soundscape file might be named soundscape_mall.txt and may contain anywhere from 5-30 different soundscapes that take on the following format...

How quickly the sound's volume drops as the camera moves away from it. Only relevant with a position specified. Default value is: "1.00". The lower the value is, greater the radius of the sound will be. And the opposite, higher the value is, smaller the radius of the sound will be. See the image above for illustrated example.

Warning: Mp3 soundscapes might save filesize for custom maps but are not recommended. It can happen that the FIRST file at "rndwave" plays after the half of the time value has passed. In this case you have to double the value (418 in this case, but live with the consequence that there will be a pause after the soundfile has played twice.

Storing and using custom soundscapes

The engine uses scripts/soundscapes_manifest.txt to find soundscapes files, but you could also use scripts/soundscapes_%mapname%.txt to load soundscapes on a map-by-map basis. All soundscapes are loaded on map start.

The soundscapes_%mapname% method should be used when modifying the manifest is unnecessary or impossible (e.g. on custom maps without their own mod directories). This file can be zipped into the BSP itself as well.

New soundscapes can be added to the manifest by adding a new "file" line at the bottom, like this:

"file" "<file location>"

Note:All soundscape names must be globally unique within a game.

Note:Although map-specific soundscripts are mounted in a similar way through maps/%mapname%_level_sounds.txt, soundscapes are mounted through the scripts folder and start with soundscapes_ instead of starting in the maps folder with %mapname% at the beginning. You can still use both map-specific soundscripts and map-specific soundscapes at the same time.